


Something Just Like This

by feistymuffin



Category: JackSepticEye (YouTube RPF), Markiplier (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 02:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11568627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feistymuffin/pseuds/feistymuffin
Summary: Warlock or not, Sean is determined to see more than just the magical side of life. He goes to America and his journey gives him an experience that even magic couldn't supply.





	Something Just Like This

**Author's Note:**

> This is my work for Camp NaNoWriMo (despite having issues actually getting registered with NaNoWriMo) and the goal was 15,000 words, but I cut it a little short. Close enough? Close enough.
> 
> The story is inspired by Bewitched, the newer movie with Nicole Kidman more than the old TV show, but still, it's where my idea came from. As always, my artistic liberty is rampant. Enjoy!

“You can’t talk me out of this,” Sean says sternly, eyeing each sibling over his trunk.

Megan gives him a look sharp with sardonicism. “Sure we can, since you’re talking crazy. Ma can whip up an anti-insanity serum in a jiffy and then you can shelf this nonsensical idea.”

“Nonsensical,” Sean scoffs. He grabs his overnight bag off the floor and starts stuffing things on his bed into it. “What’s nonsensical is us. A wave of the hand and I can summon a Polynesian hippocampus in my bathtub. To a human, that’s some real nonsense.”

With a sigh Malcolm picks up a pair of folded socks from the trunk and levitates it in his palm. “And you’ll give this all up so easily? You’ll give up what you’ve been raised into for—for some overpriced goods, and a day job, and _normalcy_?” His disgusted sneer speaks volumes on his opinion for humans and their normalcy.

“I don’t expect any of you to understand. It’s somethin’ I’ve thought about a lot, and this is what I want.” Sean sets his overnight bag down and zips the backpack beside it shut, already full of toiletries and his essential keepsakes. Glancing up, he turns his focus back on refilling the trunk of clothing that his two sisters are methodically emptying back into his dressers with fluttering fingers and irritated expressions. “Stop that, come on. I’m not movin’ to the moon or anythin’. I’m a broom ride away.”

“It’s America,” Megan says scathingly. “It’s not just a broom ride away, and it’s dangerous to be a stranger there. They’re all arrogant, and magician Americans are not excused from their stereotypical arrogance. If anything they’re worse, overworshipped and undertrained. Merlin’s shorts, they’re filthy, Sean. Primitive and socially narrow-minded. Why bother give anything up for somewhere like that?”

“It’s got somethin’ for everyone,” Sean tells her, and yanks a shirt from the air as it passes him. “I can be anythin’ I want.”

“You’ve got no skills that humans do,” Hannah points out. “What are you going to do when you need money, a job? What do you expect to do that a mortal employer needs?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Sean says firmly, as he tries to think of something he’s good at that isn’t related to brewing things in a cauldron or casting spells. “How hard can it be, anyway? Humans can do it. I can, too.”

Seamus, leaning in the doorway, rolls his sleeves up his forearms and says brusquely, “You’re batty. After a week you’ll miss it all and come running back to magic. You can’t give it up.”

“Won’t know until I try,” Sean retorts. He snags another garment as it zooms by his head and he glares at his sisters. “Stop it! I’m goin’ whether you agree or not!”

“Have you even told Ma?” Megan snaps back, hands on her hips and her long dark hair sparking with furious energy. 

“Told me what?” comes an aged voice from behind Seamus, and the five people in the room jump collectively. Clothing flies in multiple directions as Hannah shrieks in surprise. Helena McLoughlin eyes her children amusedly amongst the settling shirts. “My, are we plotting so early in the day? Whatever is the occasion?”

“Sean is running off to America,” Hannah blurts, ignoring the salty look Sean sends her way.

Dark eyebrows arch over glacial blue eyes as she moves into the room, Seamus stepping aside to let her in. “That would explain the catastrophe that your bedroom has become.” She looks at Sean with open curiosity, deepened with mystification. “What’s caused this? The incident at the bazaar?”

“No, Ma,” Sean says, cheeks blazing, at the same time as four separate voices parrot, “What incident?”

“Oh,” Helena says, and her amusement is tenfold now as she regards her red-faced son. “Well, Sean had an admirer in the market yesterday. She recognized him from his picture in _Sorcery Weekly_. Quite taken with him.”

“How does that turn you off of magic?” Megan exclaims incredulously. “Your potion made it into a popular magazine, you finally get yourself seen and you jump ship because someone liked it? Have you got toadstools between your ears?”

“Septimus Krane couldn’t figure out your mind, I swear,” Malcolm mutters. Sean forces himself to ignore the comment about the well-known telepath, but he still glares at his brother with bridled fervour.

“Ma, tell him to trash this idiotic idea,” Megan insists hotly, crossing the room to her mother. “He won’t see reason, he’s completely unrealistic.”

“He’s daft, for sure,” Seamus adds with minimal helpfulness.

“Now, I’m sure he has what he thinks is a good reason,” Helena begins mildly, covered somewhat by Hannah’s, “He was talking about learning to drive! A car, Ma, a car!”

Their voices climb over one another until the walls reverberate with the sound, and Sean can’t take anymore. “It’s ridiculous!” he bursts loudly and the room falls into a sudden hush. Without looking up from his own hands, he continues stiffly, “It’s ridiculous. She was ridiculous, and inappropriate, and embarrassin’. I don’t want to be known as some kind of celebrity if that’s what bein’ successful is in our world. I don’t want the responsibility of other people’s praise. I just want to do what I love to do, and I don’t think that’s magic.”

“Your whole life is magic, Sean,” his mother says after a beat. “You’ve been an alchemist with exceptional skills since you were little. How could you not love it?”

He sighs, shoulders drooping low. “It’s not the only thing I want to love,” Sean amends in a murmur, and Helena’s face softens. “It’s not what I want my life to be filled with, nothin’ but magic. I want somethin’ that means more than that.”

“Then breed hellhounds, or grow mandrakes, or whatever!” Megan spits. “You don’t have to fly off to America to get some variety in your life!”

“I made up my mind,” Sean informs her tiredly. “I’m goin’, no matter how long you unpack my bags, Meg.”

For a long time his older sister stares him down over his bed, one of his shirts clenched in her shaking hands until finally her eyes glance to the floor then back up again, much gentler than before. “Fine, then. Go. Obviously you’re too stubborn to hear different.” Megan lifts a hand and clothes begin to float in reverse of their previous path, from Sean’s drawers to his trunk, lid opened wide and waiting. 

Malcolm studies the levitating pair of socks before sending them soaring neatly into the trunk. “Well, you’ll make your mark, that’s for sure.”

“Whatever you decide to do, you’ll do it splendidly,” Helena tells her youngest child with a beaming smile. “Magic or not, dear.”

Sean ducks his head with a small quirk of his mouth and bends to retrieve a pair of pants from the floor. “Obviously.”

*

He eyes the deck of cards lying nonchalant on the motel nightstand and reminds himself that his new lifestyle doesn’t even allow him to carry them, never mind use them. 

“You don’t need them,” Sean says aloud, cementing the words into existence. His gaze doesn’t divert from the little box. The patterns on it are Gaelic, Old World magic seals that he painted himself on a new moon at a place of power, the Hellmouth southwest of Sligo at Seafield House. Their preparation up until their completion took a month, and he’s had them for over five years.

He has to leave them behind, because he’s not a warlock anymore.

“Turn around and walk out the door,” he tells himself. 

The innocent box stares back at him with all the accusation of a pet being bathed, daring him to give in and take them with him. _No one will know_ , the cards seem to say. _Take us. Just in case_.

“I’m a mortal now,” Sean insists. “No magic. Whatsoever.” He doesn’t move away, though. “Perfectly mortal. Unmagically mortal.” The sight of the deck on the small table is burned into his mind. “I’m walkin’ out the door now.”

The box slides smoothly into his back pocket as he shuts the door behind him, a heavy sigh dragging his shoulders down into a hunch. He rubs his eyes and calls for a cab to take him into town, feeling the weight of his deck like bricks. “Some mortal I’m turnin’ out to be.”

A moment later he gets a text from Megan that reads, _I told you so, little brother_.

_Scrying is spying, Meggie_ , he sends back, and comforts himself with the mental image of Megan tearing her hair out by the fistful if she saw him washing his clothes by hand in a motel bathroom sink.

The realtor he meets with, Candice, sees him through several houses in a nice neighbourhood, but everything she mentions when it comes to prices makes Sean wince in pain. Without magic he’s basically broke, his savings doing little more than getting him to America and supporting his motel fund for the first few days, and whatever’s left goes to food and transportation. Already he’s seeing the severity of his decision, and it doesn’t bode well for his wallet or his resolve. 

After Candice leaves him to make a decision (“You just call me when you make up your mind, sugar!”) Sean sits on the curb in front of his favourite house of the afternoon, a one-story little cottage style house in a suburb not far from downtown, painted a pale green and so quaint that it belongs on the peak of some rustic hill in the countryside. It even has a front porch with a swinging bench. The interior is nicely decorated in neutral colours and comes completely furnished. It’s so perfect that he can’t believe he was so lucky, to find such a good fit for him.

Thinking of the cost makes Sean put his head in his hands and let out a pitiful groan. To add insult to injury his deck is heavier than ever, a constant reminder of the ease with which he could solve his problem.

“Whew, you look like you need a hug, man.”

Sean’s head snaps back up to see a young man, caramel-skinned and dark-haired with almond eyes and rectangular glasses, walking down the front sidewalk of the house beside his dream home. He’s muscled enough to make his plain white t-shirt just this side of too tight, and Sean feels the instant attraction like a foot to his gut. He has to replay the words in his head before he can reply as he stands, “Oh, no, I’m fine. Sorry, I was just goin’.”

“You’re giving me the impression that I’ve just interrupted some serious contemplation,” the guy says casually, apparently ignoring Sean’s attempt at departure. He stops a few feet away and tucks his hands into his jeans pockets with a smile, gorgeous in its lazy charm. “You looked pretty deep, too. What were you thinking about?”

“I, uh, really want this house,” Sean says morosely, with a little wave to the cottage. “I love it to death. But I really can’t afford it.”

“Oh, yeah, that is a bummer,” the man replies sincerely. He pauses, his look of consternation reforming into one of wryness before continuing easily, “For me, too, you know. You seem like you’d be a good neighbour.” 

“Based on… what?” Sean wonders, giving him an odd look. “You don’t even know my name.”

“There’s a pretty simple way to fix that,” the man replies. “Here, I’ll start. I’m Mark, your hopefully-neighbour.” 

“Hopefully-neighbour,” Sean says, slowly. “You know, you’re not the most subtle guy.” He lets his eyes slip out of focus and through the fuzz he sees Mark’s _cara anam_ , or soul friend, a Labrador retriever with its attentive black eyes on Jack. He realizes his mistake at once and blinks to force the aura away.

“You don’t know that I’m hitting on you,” Mark says breezily, with an equally breezy shrug. “Maybe I’m being a friendly suburbian citizen.”

“Are you?” is Sean’s skeptical response. 

Mark grins broadly. “Nah. I’m totally hitting on you.”

The Irishman snorts, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck with a little smile. “That’s what I thought.”

“I never got that name.” Mark takes an idle step closer, then another. “If it’s not overstepping my hopefully-neighbourly boundaries.”

Sean laughs softly, eyeing Mark as he saunters into his personal space. “Se—” he starts to say, but stops halfway. _Fresh start_ , he thinks to himself. The Labrador retriever flickers across his mind’s eye for a brief moment, and Sean’s reminded of his own _cara anam_ , a jackrabbit. “Uh, Jack.”

Mark quirks his eyebrow, the corner of his mouth soon following. “Nice to meet you, Shuhjack.”

Well, he botched that perfectly. “No, not—” Sean laughs, mostly at himself. “God, sorry. Not Shuhjack. It’s… Sean, actually, but Jack is kind of a… nickname, I guess. I’m hopin’ for a new leaf to be turned here, and I don’t honestly know what name I want people to call me.”

“I like Sean better,” Mark says simply. “Only if you’re asking for opinions, of course.”

“As a complete stranger? Oh, yeah, your opinion is like gold.” Sean smiles at the faux scandalized look on Mark’s face. “Sorry, a hopefully-neighbour.”

“That’s better,” Mark mutters huffily, then his mouth breaks into a dopey grin. 

Sean feels warm at that look, and turns away to sigh at the house one more time before he brings out his phone to call a cab. “I should go, before I start beggin’ the real estate lady to give it to me as a charity case.”

“It’s a shame,” Mark says with a sigh of his own.

“What is?” Sean asks, glancing at him.

“That you can’t afford it here,” Mark says. He looks genuinely put out as he adds, “I mean, I’m not rolling in money or anything, but I remember being lower than I am now on the food chain. It sucks.” He smiles, shrugs a little as if to brush away a negative thought. “It’s a shame I couldn’t be your neighbour after all.”

_Yeah_ , Sean finds himself thinking. _It really is_. “It was nice to meet you, Mark,” he says aloud, and holds out a hand.

Mark saunters forward until he’s within reach of Sean’s arm and he takes hold of his outstretched hand. “I hope I’ll be lucky enough to see you again, Sean.”

The touch sings through his bones like a little burst of sunlight, and Sean is captivated by the somber smile on Mark’s face. “Why?” he can’t seem to stop himself from asking.

“‘Cause you’re something else,” Mark says. He hasn’t let go of Sean’s hand yet, instead letting his thumb brush back and forth along the pulse at his wrist. Sean doesn’t stop him, doesn’t even consider it. “You look like a peacock in a hen house. You just… stand out, in a brilliant way.” Mark shrugs blithely, easing a pace closer. The air between them becomes shared and intimate, until Sean finds his breath catching at the sight of Mark’s warm brown eyes staring into his own. “Please tell me I can have your number.”

_You can have whatever you want_ , Sean thinks, and he means it. “Sure,” he says. Mark beams at him and digs his phone from his back pocket, and once Mark lets go Sean puts in his number.

“You’re staying in town, right?” Mark asks. He sounds so hopeful that any fleeting plan Sean had for moving on to another city evaporates into nothingness. “You’re sticking around?”

“I’m stickin’ around,” Sean confirms. Mark’s beatific smile makes his lips curve in return, and something in Sean is nudging him, pushing him on towards the charming man. Sean’s been a magic user all his life and he’s had encounters—if you could call them that—with the energies of the universe before. He’s not the only one either. His parents and siblings have almost all had instances of aid from the mysterious forces of the universe, for any number of things. His parents say that a hint from the Aether, the common name used by most witches and wizards for this power, is what brought them together. So he knows the signs when he’s being given hints by powers greater than himself. Civilizations call them different things: forces of nature, The Powers That Be, gods or immortal beings of various names. No matter the title they know more than anything what a person needs, and sometimes they offer the slightest bit of help.

Mark lifts his hand, then aborts the motion and brings it back down. He ducks his head as if embarrassed, and backs up towards his house. “Right. Then I’ll see you around, Sean.”

“See you,” Sean murmurs, and watches Mark turn and disappear back into his house. It’s peculiar, what he feels in such a short time for the mortal, and having input from the Aether is something serious to consider. What could it mean? Does it want Sean to pursue this chance? Mark is appealing by definition, but he would have to cheat again and use magic to be able to get the house and be his neighbour. Should he break his own promise and buy this house to be near Mark? 

With a grating sigh Sean pulls out his deck from his pocket and gives it a miserable stare. Just once more won’t hurt, right?

*

He’s dragging his last bag, the heaviest of them, through the front doorway when his phone rings. He unpockets it, brings it to his ear and looks up as the cab pulls away from the curb and drives off, dreading the next five minutes of his life. “Hello?”

“You didn’t even make it a week,” is Megan’s instant greeting. 

“Wow, Meggie, nice to hear from you, too,” Sean grunts, hauling the large trunk one-handed into the living room and dropping it unceremoniously onto the thick rug. He goes back and shuts the front door, eyeing the forms on the coffee table that he’d signed not two hours before. “And what’s your problem with spyin’ on me? Christ, just ask me how I am.”

“I told you it wasn’t a good idea,” Megan insists hotly, ignoring his comment. “You can’t even do it.”

“I had no money,” he snaps at her. “What would you suggest I do? Live under a bridge with trolls and other poor, penniless bastards?”

“No,” she retorts, “I would suggest you give up this foolhardy idea and come home.”

He rolls his eyes and feels no remorse when he hangs up on her. 

Sean piles stuff onto the top of the smaller trunk and carries the entirety of it into his bedroom, already occupied by some of his other bags. He hadn’t brought much with him materially speaking, but what he did bring were all things he knows he could never leave behind, no matter how mortal he wants to be. His deck of tarot cards, his father’s enchanted sash that his mother wove for him as a wedding gift, and all of his brewing equipment are all a part of him, and it burns him inside to think of giving them up for any reason. He couldn’t even leave them at home, so how does he think he’ll be able to stop using them at all? He’s cheated once now to buy the house he’s in, and while he was at it he may have somewhat inflated his savings account as well. 

_Meg’s right_ , Sean thinks morosely, setting down his cargo and sitting on the edge of his bed. _I’m rubbish at being a mortal. I’m just kidding myself, playing house in the human world_. 

A soft, cracking _pop_ sounds in the air, and Sean glances up glumly to see Megan standing in his bedroom. She glares back at him. “You don’t suppose that I’m some kind of idiot, do you?”

He frowns, looking down to his threaded fingers, and says tiredly, “I don’t know, Meg, have you done anythin’ lately that deserves the title?”

She plops down onto the bed beside him and bumps her shoulder into his. “You’re lonely, little brother. You want someone to like you for you, and not for what you can do. I get it. But paving a whole new path isn’t necessary. You can still find someone honest in your own community.”

“You’re startin’ to sound like one of those magic elitists,” Sean mutters. “There’s nothin’ wrong with mortals.” He thinks of Mark’s smile, his wide mouth dimpling cheeks half-covered with dark hair growth. Sean sees his shoulders moving with laughter or a shrug, sees the way his body and his face are so expressive, the way he emotes so much. _No, there isn’t anything wrong with mortals at all_. 

“Merlin’s owl, Sean, do you have a crush on someone already?” Meg exclaims, scrutinizing his face closely. Her eyes open wide. “By the Aether, you do. Who have you met so early?”

Sean’s face floods with heat, and he shoves his sister as he stands. “It makes no difference, and it’s none of your business. You’ll just turn him into a crow or somethin’.”

“That was one time,” she says irritably. Then she perks. “So it’s a man, then?”

_Shit_. “I didn’t say that.”

“You did. You said “him”,” she recites smugly. “Who is he? What does he do in this miserable existence?”

“It’s no one, and get lost,” he grumbles. He starts transferring his clothes from his bags into his dressers and wardrobe. “What are you here for, anyway? Just to report back to the family?”

“Essentially,” Meg says agreeably. “Ma was worried. She says you haven’t even texted anyone in days, and Pa says you were supposed to call him this morning.”

“I’ve been busy,” Sean hedges, fussing with the collar of his sky blue button-down before hanging it up. “I had to figure things out.”

“Too busy to pick up your phone? Too busy doing mundane things like buying houses and unpacking your magical belongings, Mr. Mortal?” 

“Megan, if you refuse to be constructive, I’ll put up an apparition ward around this entire block,” Sean snaps. He eyes her angrily, his temper spiking when she only shrugs uninterestedly. “For the love of—”

The doorbell rings, cutting him off abruptly. Megan whirls and sprints for the door, but years of knowing her has trained Sean to be quicker. He beats her to the bedroom door, slamming it shut and clamping a hand around her wrist, preventing her escape. 

“That’s him, isn’t it?” she asks gleefully. “The guy. Oh my god, it is,” Meg continues, even more excited as she sees his panicked expression.

“You need to get out immediately,” Sean says, and he adds the action to his mental tally of magical cheats as he forcibly apparates her back to her bedroom in Ireland, in the midst of her protesting. 

He runs his fingers through his hair and walks quickly to the front door. He pauses there, takes a quick breath in and out, and then opens it. Sean’s heart drops into his stomach then flies up into his throat when he sees Mark on his porch in loose, well-worn denim overalls, one shoulder strap broken and the other barely hanging on. The overalls as well as the white shirt beneath them are covered in random smudges of paint in a wide range of colours. Mark’s hair has an actual streak of white paint in it, and his hands and forearms are liberally splotched too. 

“Welcome to the neighbourhood,” he says cheerfully. “I thought I’d come by on my lunch break and wish you a happy housewarming.”

Sean smiles demurely, leaning on the doorframe and trying not to let his eyes wander all over Mark’s rounded muscles in the tight shirt. “I’m not even havin’ a housewarmin’. I’m just unpackin’.”

It’s a surprise when Mark rests his shoulder on the same side of the door that Sean is leaning, and it brings their faces so close that all Sean has to do is move one step, and they could touch. Mark is taller than him by a couple inches, and right now Sean feels every millimetre of the difference as he looks up into beautiful, chocolate eyes. 

“You might invite me in, and then we have the potential for a housewarming,” Mark says quietly, smiling in a way that makes Sean picture seeing that smile first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.

“Come in,” Sean replies at once, and backs up when Mark makes a slow move forward. He steps aside to let Mark by, and his neighbour drags his fingertips along Sean’s arm as he passes him. He shuts the door with an unsteady hand and finds Mark in the living room, looking at the tarot deck on the coffee table.

“What’re these?” Mark asks curiously, picking it up.

“Oh, uh,” Sean stammers, moving to his side and trying to snatch the box from his hands, but Mark keeps it out of his reach, eyes bright with mirth. “Uh, nothin’. They’re just, uh, cards. Tarot cards.”

“Tarot,” Mark says, looking at them again. “Like fortune-telling?”

“Sort of,” Sean says, wincing a little. He reaches for them, but Mark just turns his shoulder into Sean’s chest, bringing them close. “C’mon, they’re not that interestin’.”

“This looks hand-painted,” Mark notes, tracing the rune for protection on the back of the deck box. 

“It is,” Sean admits. He gives a final stretch to grab them, but Mark easily diverts his hand by snagging it with his free one. He doesn’t let go, though, and rubs small circles into Sean’s palm. “I-I painted them.”

“It’s really good,” Mark tells him, turning to look at his face. His gaze falls to Sean’s mouth when he licks his lips nervously. “Why did you paint your own tarot cards?”

Sean swallows, feeling himself reddening under those eyes. “Because I wanted to,” he replies evasively. 

“They’re well-used,” Mark murmurs, noticing the wear around the corners and edges of the box. “Have I got a fortune-telling Irishman on my hands? I wonder what I’ve done to be so _fortunate_.”

Despite his nerves Sean laughs. When Mark pulls his hand ever-so-gently he goes with the motion, being drawn another step closer to Mark. Comedy covering truth may be the best way out of the small hole he finds himself in. “You caught me,” Sean says softly, his face inches from Mark’s. “I’m secretly a warlock.”

Mark smiles. His thumb becomes maddening on Sean’s hand, stroking up his wrist and then all the way down his middle finger. “A warlock, huh? And what does that entail? Spellcasting and cauldrons?”

“And fortune-tellin’,” Sean adds, and soaks up the deep, melodic sound of Mark’s chuckle like a sponge. To prevent Mark from seeing how affected he’s becoming by the simple touches, Sean steps back and tugs his hand free. “So, uh, what’s actually involved in a housewarmin’ party?”

“Typically more than two people,” Mark muses, “but we’ll make do. Snacks and drinks, gifts for the new neighbour. Lots of mingling.”

“Those all sound like they need at least a few people,” Sean says after a moment. “And I don’t want any gifts.”

“Excellent, because I forgot to get one,” Mark says amusedly. “Typically, people in a housewarming party are better dressed than the average commercial painter, but since I’m here for a limited time today I thought I might be able to get away with it.”

“You look great,” Sean blurts, and then feels his face flame as Mark’s expression brightens with humour and lust. “I mean, you—for bein’ a painter in the middle of a work day, you look good. Fine. You look, uh, you look fine.” He turns quickly and goes to the kitchen, which is also half-unpacked. Boxes litter the countertops and some of the floor, some full of kitchen things and others emptied of their contents into cupboards or onto the counter. He goes to the coffee maker, the first thing he unpacked, and goes about making a fresh pot, acutely aware of Mark behind him.

Sure enough, once the coffee starts percolating and he turns around Mark is there, leaning on the island with his brown eyes gleaming. “I could get used to this.”

“Used to what?” Sean asks, leaning back to rest against the edge of the counter.

Mark shrugs, rubbing a white-stained hand along his cheek and back into his hair. He sighs and gives Sean a searching look before it’s replaced by his trademark easygoing smile. “This. Seeing you. Having coffee in your kitchen. It’s something I could really get into.”

Hiding his delighted shock at the forward statement, Sean turns to dig in a box for some mugs. It’s only coincidence that he also avoids meeting Mark’s eyes. “We don’t really know each other, though. Still pretty much strangers.”

His neighbour’s low voice is like honey when he says, “I like what I know so far, and I’m looking forward to learning the rest.”

Slowly Sean sets down the mugs in his hands, turning back again to face him. Mark’s face is an open book, written liberally with hope and optimistic desire. Anxious excitement spirals up Sean’s chest, clenching his lungs and making his next breath almost a gasp. “Mark, you’re _really_ not subtle.”

“I say what I mean. Always have,” Mark says. He pushes away from the island opposite Sean, slowly advancing. “And my mom tells me I’m a good judge of character, so I don’t think I’m wrong in believing I’m not the only one interested.”

Sean can’t speak, especially not when Mark reaches him and barricades him against the counter with a paint-splattered, muscled arm on either side of him. He stares up at Mark, at his goofy-yet-charming smile and studious but noninvasive eyes, and the stupid stripe of paint in his hair, and Sean yearns for something that he can’t even name.

“Am I wrong?” Mark asks softly. He moves no closer, but his presence is smothering. His cologne is musky, covered up slightly by the toxically clean smell of paint, and Sean can already imagine what it feels like to be wrapped in those arms. 

“No,” he gets out, swallowing before adding, “you’re not—you’re not wrong.”

Mark beams at him, mouth spitting wide to bare straight ivory teeth. At close range he’s even more handsome than usual. “That’s great,” he says, and then seems to realize how close they are. He steps back a little with a sheepish grin.

Sean’s hand comes up to latch onto his arm before he really thinks it through, and right away he knows he’s in trouble. Mark’s skin under his hand is like sunlight, warm and inviting. Incredibly, Sean feels the minute stirring of his _cara anam_ within himself as it turns its focus on Mark, long ears lifted high and bushy tail perked as it peers at him.

“How acceptable is it,” Sean wonders idly, forcibly ignoring the aura, “for new neighbourly acquaintances to make out in my kitchen?”

Mark bursts out laughing, turning over his hand to snag Sean’s in his. His fingers play between Sean’s, forefinger drawing out patterns on his skin. “Probably not very acceptable. For the sake of social correctness, I’m happy to hold your hand until I have to leave.”

Sean ignores the little twinge of sadness he gets at the reminder that Mark’s visit is a short one. “Not many people would settle for hand-holdin’, with sexual tension like this.” Mark laughs a little, and Sean smiles. “But… you’re not like most people, are you?”

The Asian smiles oddly, wry and resigned. “You know, I’ve heard that said a lot before, and in many different ways, but I don’t think anybody has meant it as kindly as you just did.”

Sean quells the racing of his heart as Mark looks up at him from staring at their linked hands. “If you can believe it, I relate pretty well to that. Standin’ out, I mean. And not necessarily in good ways.” When they were kids, his parents had encouraged their children to go to mortal schools as they grew up, to get educated on not only educational things, but also social graces with mortals and their technology and culture. Sean was the only one out of the five of them who hadn’t hated the experience in some way or another. By high school Sean was teaching his siblings how to text and use the Internet which, as soon as they understood the tasks, they initiated magically as opposed to manually. 

In the mystical part of the world Sean is something of an oddity, fluent in common mortal culture and technology, and even capable of using appliances himself without magical aid. Because of that attitude he had his share of teasing and bullying growing up, both from mortal kids who saw him as abnormal because of his visibly odd traits from being a warlock (a fact which was to be hidden from the mortal public under any circumstance), and from magician children who saw him as a mortal-loving weirdo, who used a cell phone and typed on computers and did things by hand as often as he did them by magic. 

“You seem so kind,” Sean murmurs, and Mark glances at him curiously. “And yet you’re single. I wonder why no one’s caught on to your charm yet?”

Mark’s smile is edged with bitterness. “The saying “nice guys finish last” isn’t just a saying these days.”

Sean lets his hand go to slide his palm up Mark’s forearm then down again. “I like nice guys. I found this one guy, actually. Pretty good-lookin’, and he could probably charm the habit off a nun. Funny, too.”

Mark ducks his head with a modest little smile, his long hair flopping into his face. Tentatively Sean reaches up to smooth it away, tucking it behind Mark’s ear, but as he’s drawing away Mark takes his hand and brings it to his mouth, kisses the knuckles with enough reverence for royalty. 

Slowly their hands lower, Mark releasing his fingers and reaching up to cup his hand around Sean’s jaw. His touch makes Sean’s skin tingle with nerves but they’re the stomach-clenching, happy kind, and he’s leaning into the touch as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. It feels like it is, and the way that Mark looks at him gives him enough butterflies to populate an entomologist’s lab for decades. 

“I can stop,” Mark offers out of politeness, but his eyes are already on Sean’s mouth, unerringly taking in the sight of his lips and the way Sean’s tongue darts out to wet them.

He could agree, and they could separate and continue talking like civilized, flirtatious neighbours. Or… “Don’t,” Sean urges, and loops a hand around Mark’s neck as he descends.

The first touch is testing, a brush of lips that leaves Sean craving more, but the second is more permanent as their mouths align. Steadily Mark sneaks a hand around his back to hold him there, pressed snugly to his chest, bending into the curve of Mark’s body as he pins Sean against the edge of the counter. 

Mark’s tongue licks a winding path back and forth across his bottom lip, his teeth nipping gently, then again when Sean makes a small noise. Caressingly his mouth takes Sean apart, bit by bit until he has his hands buried in the dark, partially painted hair, with both of Mark’s solid arms around him and holding him so tightly he’s beginning to have trouble breathing properly. 

Or, well, that could be a lot of things. He won’t be judged for his reactions when being in Mark’s embrace feels good enough to be the object of an epic poem.

They separate briefly and Mark lets out an uneven breath, leaning back far enough to look Sean in the eye. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression here,” he says, then lowers to kiss him again.

“What impression would that be?” Sean asks under his mouth, moaning softly at the display of strength when Mark hoists him up to put his butt on the counter. He hooks his legs around Mark and hauls him in for another kiss.

“That I’m just trying to get you to bed,” Mark explains. He kisses a long path down Sean’s neck, his head angled away to give him plenty of room, and back up again. 

“I’m glad we’re on the same page, then,” Sean says breathily. He leans into Mark’s hands when they skim down his chest and stomach, sighing at the feeling. Mark lifts his head and finds Sean’s mouth with his, eliciting a small noise from the Irishman when his arms become a crushing pressure.

“Too hard?” Mark murmurs at his cheek, kissing there before working along his cheekbone and then down to the hinge of his jaw. “Sorry. I’ll be gentler.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Sean teases, and Mark laughs as he comes back up to press tender littles kisses all over his mouth.

The coffee maker beeps but neither of them acknowledge it, too busy exploring each other’s bodies and filling the silent kitchen with soft gasps and the damp sounds of mouths clashing.

Mark says something while they’re kissing and the words get jumbled between their lips. Sean pulls back far enough to breathe, smiling helplessly at Mark’s mussed hair and flushed mouth. “Try that again without my face bein’ on your face.”

“I said,” Mark murmurs, smiling so gorgeously that Sean wishes he could still use magic to perform a Pause spell and sit in this moment forever, “that I’d love to take you out. But unfortunately my parents are commandeering me this weekend for one of their huge friends-and-family barbecues.”

Sean’s heart drops. “Oh,” he murmurs, strangely hurt that Mark wouldn’t want to invite him. Then again, why would he? They only met the day before… and have been kissing passionately for the past ten minutes. Sean can’t decide whether he should be ashamed of his forwardness or to pat himself on the back. “That’s okay. Maybe next week, then.”

Mark chuckles. Reverently he cups Sean’s face and smoothes his thumbs over his cheeks, holding his eyes even when Sean feels as if he should look away. “That was a horrible attempt at inviting you to come with me, not an excuse to not take you out at all. Will you go with me, come meet my family and eat hot dogs and potato salad and endure their snooping?”

“I’m fully capable of endurin’ some snoopin’,” Sean murmurs, smiling when Mark plants a light, barely-there kiss on his nose. “My own family is bad enough to be good practice for others.”

“Aren’t they all,” Mark agrees woefully, and moves to nibble a line down Sean’s neck.

Sean feels the steady flush creep from his face all the way down his chest the more Mark pays attention to his body. His large hands cup under Sean’s butt and hold him close to Mark’s hips, then smooth up his back so slowly that it’s nothing but a prelude, a promise for more. Mark nips at his neck again and he can’t stop the heady moan that falls from his mouth when pleasure zings through him like warm electricity.

Mark pausing makes every insecurity Sean has rear its ugly head. He goes still in Mark’s arms and mutters, “ _Tá brón orm_ , that’s, um… sorry, that’s a sensitive spot.”

“First of all,” Mark replies dryly, “the next time you apologize for my ability to get you to make a sound like that, I’m going to dump you in the nearest body of water. Second of all, what was that? What did you say?” Mark tries to repeat, and completely butchers, the words Sean said.

Sean’s eyebrows lift, lips quirking. “Oh, Jesus, I didn’t even realize,” he murmurs, laughing a little. “It just means ‘sorry’. It’s Irish Gaelic.”

“Gaelic,” Mark says softly, obsessively studying Sean’s mouth. “Say something else. Anything.”

Sean can’t help his short giggle before he says, “ _Tá péint i do ghruaig_.”

Mark’s eyes don’t leave Sean’s face as he talks, taking in all the details, and then he asks, “What did you say?”

“There’s paint in your hair,” Sean translates, fingering the long strand of white-tainted dark hair in question.

“There’s always paint in my hair,” Mark replies, laughing, and bends down again to devour Sean’s mouth while it’s open with laughter. 

They’ve barely started to wrap around each other again before a shrill beeping sound starts emanating from Mark’s front pocket. He lets out a groan and steps back, letting Sean down onto the tile floor and digging his phone from his jeans. Scowling down at the device he mutters, “My lunch break is up, I have to go back to work.”

“More colours to decorate yourself with?” Sean guesses. He smiles when Mark looks up and fixates that gorgeous, glowering face on him. “They suit you. _An-dáthúil_.”

“You’re going to make a habit of this Gaelic thing, aren’t you?” Mark muses, gravitating back to Sean, his hands reaching and his fingers hooking loosely in Sean’s belt loops. “What did you say this time?”

“I said you looked very handsome,” he replies, and laughs when Mark hauls him sharply to his chest. “What, you don’t like my compliment?”

“You’re lucky I don’t spank you for such insolence,” Mark teases, and gives Sean’s ass a slap. The shrilling alarm starts up again and Mark sighs heavily, silencing it and putting the phone back in his pocket. “Alright, I have to go. Happy housewarming, Sean.” He presses a slow, tender kiss to Sean’s mouth then backs up considerably. His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles. “I’ll see you around, neighbour.” He leaves the room with a small wave and a wink over his shoulder.

Once the front door shuts behind him, Sean collapses back against the counter and presses a hand to his chest in a futile effort to calm his stampeding heartbeat. His phone rings behind him on the countertop but he doesn’t turn around. He holds a hand to his flaming face and laughs until his stomach hurts.

Multitudinous pops sound in the kitchen, and then Sean is staring at the entirety of his family in the relatively small space.

“I told you!” Megan shrieks, and points an accusing finger at Sean. “He’s cavorting with a human already! He’s totally ignorant to reality!”

His mother’s eyes are brimming with humour. “Oh dear, Sean. Cavorting, are you? That’s ambitious, for only knowing the man a few days.”

“It’s nothin’, Ma. Merlin’s shorts, Pa, put that down,” Sean says warily, eyeing his father where he’s poking interestedly at a coffee bean grinder. Turning to Helena he adds, “Meg is nutters. There’s been no cavortin’.”

“Then I just imagined you making out in this kitchen with a man who paints rooms for a living?” Megan retorts irritably. 

Sean’s angry, “Would you quit scryin’ me already?!” is overlaid by their parents’ even angrier, “What?” all directed at Megan.

She scoffs, tossing her hair even as it sparks with bad temper. “Please, with how he lies it’s the only way to get any information out of him.”

“How old are you? Scrying on your brother like a child,” Malcolm muses. He ignores Megan’s furious screech and tilts his head at the coffee machine. “Is this how mortals brew coffee? This is primordial. There isn’t even a cauldron, or a sieve.”

“It uses filters and a carafe,” Sean tells him, then says to the room, “and I say this with love, but everyone get out.”

“We are having words later about privacy, Megan Agatha,” Helena warns her youngest daughter, evidently not paying attention to her youngest son. “Spy on your brother again and I’ll Null you until next season.”

It’s a powerful threat, and one that has Megan’s face turning a curious shade of mauve. She knows there’s no working around a guardian’s Null, especially when they’re your blood relative. Otherwise at the risk of having her powers taken away temporarily, Megan lets out a dull, “Fine. I will ignore him.”

“Excellent,” Sean says cheerfully. “And again, really, I love you guys. But leave. Seamus, I saw that. Stop enchantin' my appliances.”

With a glum glare Seamus waves his hand and returns the waddling toaster to its motionless state. He apparates into nothingness with a smirk in Sean’s direction, and Sean nicks an additional tally to his magic cheating as he corrects Seamus’ spells on his faucet and cutlery. His mother gives him a kiss on the cheek before popping out, and his dad grins in his broad, rugged way and follows.

Hannah lingers, eyes on her toes as Malcolm and Megan both vanish. Sean gives her a look. “Somethin’ up, Nana?”

She smiles at the childhood nickname. It’s what Sean called her when he was a toddler, since he couldn’t say Hannah yet. “No, nothing’s up, really. I just…” She shrugs when his eyebrows rise expectantly. “I felt like someone should tell you that what you’re doing is good. It’s a good decision to make, to be independent and follow something you want that’s outside normal parameters. It took a little bit to understand, but… it’s good, Sean. Don’t let Meg or Malcolm tell you different. Even if you can’t do it all the human way, keep doing it. Mortality looks good on you.”

“The magic world won’t miss me,” Sean agrees. He leans and nudges her shoulder with his. “Thanks, Nana. Come visit soon, when I’ve got stuff settled.”

“I may have to bring the rest of the bunch,” she reminds him dryly.

“If you must,” Sean sighs, and her laughter echoes in the small house before she, too, disappears.

*

“When you said a barbecue,” Sean begins nervously, led by the hand by Mark towards a literal crowd of people in the large house’s even larger yard. They’d driven half an hour outside of the city, into the spacious, luxurious neighbourhood where the houses are surrounded by groves of trees, for privacy and atmosphere alike. “I’ll be honest, I pictured a lot less people.”

The dozen or so cars that Mark parked next to hinted at a large party, but this… this is half a town’s worth of bodies. The barbecue-goers are scattered around the yard, occupying a fire pit, a complete outdoor kitchen, a swimming pool, a gazebo, a patio with dining furniture, a paved area with lounge chairs near the pool, and a cozy area with outdoor couches that’s secluded from the rest of the yard by slatted walls. The amount of wealth required for such a property and all its fixings is significant, and curiously Sean wonders what a person with parents this wealthy is doing painting walls.

Mark smiles at him, his tan fingers tightening around Sean’s and making his heart skip. “Relax, it’s alright. They’re all practically family.”

“That doesn’t simplify things,” Sean tells him. They’re walking across the grass and bee-lining for the kitchen area where a tall dark-haired man in an apron is manning the barbecue, a small crowd of men and one woman around him chatting.

“Dad, Mom,” Mark says as they come up to the grill, and the woman and the aproned man both turn. The couple grins simultaneously at the sight of their son and they both come forward.

“Hi, honey,” the woman says, leaning up to kiss his cheek before turning a keen eye on Sean. “Who’s this?”

“This is Sean,” Mark replies, and Sean doesn’t miss the touch of emotion in the easy words. He blushes under Mark’s parents’ knowing gazes and refrains from hiding himself behind his date. “He’s my new neighbour.”

“You look awfully friendly for just a neighbour,” Mark’s father says with a lopsided grin. He holds out a large hand to Sean, which he shakes, absently noticing the apron’s caption, “If It’s Food, I’ll Grill It”. “I’m John, and this is my wife Kim.”

“A pleasure to meet you both,” Sean responds, and almost gnaws the inside of his cheek raw when Mark’s teasing grip starts compromising his ability to breathe.

Kim eyes them almost smugly, and nods towards the bulk of the party guests around the dining area where food is already laid out on various platters on the long table. “Go on and have fun, we’ll come interrogate you both later.”

Sean gulps but Mark laughs, slinging a warm arm around Sean’s shoulders and careening him to face the rest of the yard. As they walk, Sean feels the people they pass turn eyes on them. “You don’t date much, do you?” he asks Mark, looking up at him.

“How’d you guess?” Mark muses dryly. “Was it the bullet-like stares from every direction, or maybe my parents’ total lack of subtlety?”

“Well, I know where you get it from, at least,” Sean murmurs, and feels a hot little thrill at Mark’s raucous laugh. Rather than confront or join any of the groups of people, though, Mark guides them right over to the empty couches in the secluded spot, parking Sean down and then sitting snugly next to him.

“Is this what you suppose your mother meant when she said “have fun”?” Sean chuckles.

“I’m having the utmost fun,” Mark murmurs, then curls a hand around his neck and leans forward. Sean sighs into the kiss and soaks up the warmth from his body, slowly putting his arms around Mark’s neck and letting the Korean take his weight.

“Why don’t you date?” Sean mumbles when Mark pulls away, combing his fingers through Sean’s shorter hair.

“Nobody wants to date someone who does manual labour as a job,” Mark replies simply. “And the ones that do all have something about them that turns me off, or we aren’t that compatible, or I have something that turns them off besides being a labourer.”

“That’s so stupid,” Sean huffs. “You’re no better or worse than someone because of what you earn.”

“Not a common opinion,” Mark informs him, and rests his hand on Sean’s thigh to cause catastrophic damage to his already nervous body. It worsens when Mark’s thumb strokes an even path back and forth, along the in-seam of his pants. “But, then again, those are the kinds of people that never met my family, and saw my actual roots. You can imagine the one-eighty they’d do if they knew I came from more money than I know what to do with.”

Sean hums, looks up at Mark’s face as he says softly, “I’m curious, and don’t get the wrong idea here, but why do you do what you do, if your family is this wealthy?”

“I still don’t know what I want to actually do,” Mark replies, bending and kissing a slow trail from his jaw to his lips. He lingers and lets his mouth take Sean apart for a few long seconds, then leans away. “I’ve studied at several universities, tried vocations of all sorts, and I even tried some acting and singing jobs. Nothing fit. So I do a simple job with nice people, and I enjoy my life. I own a house and car, I’m stable because of my extremely supportive family, and I’ve got time to figure the rest out.”

It’s what Sean is striving for by leaving his old ways behind, finding the thing that puts meaning into his life. He could do anything, just like Mark. He could spend however long he wants trying to find out what that thing is. He may never actually find his life’s meaning, but as he looks at Mark’s calming, gentle smile he doesn’t mind the thought as much as he once did.

“That’s really amazin’,” Sean says, and the wattage in Mark’s incandescent smile doubles as he bends to kiss him again.

“Ah, so this is where you hid yourself,” comes an amused man’s voice, and Sean jolts in surprise, jumping away from Mark. A tall, broad brunet wearing a beanie and glasses sits across them on the other couch, followed by a man with dyed blue hair and a kind face in a tank top, displaying his muscled arms. “I thought you’d bailed on us, buddy.”

“I would never,” Mark says innocently, snaking a hand around Sean’s waist and tugging him closely to Mark’s side. Sean warms all over, feeling Mark’s body so thoroughly against his, and resists making the small contented noise on the back of his tongue. “I just have a really good distraction.”

“I can see that,” the blue-haired man says with amusement. “I’m Ethan, and this is Tyler,” he says to Sean. “We know Mark from way back when. Grew up with the loser.”

“Yes, these are my sidekicks,” Mark tells Sean, smiling nastily at his friends. “Pretty good cockblocks, too.”

“If we let you make out all night in your parents’ backyard with your new date, we’d never hear the end of it from Kim,” Tyler says, and chucks a throw pillow at the painter. 

“Guys, this is Sean,” Mark introduces, catching it and tossing it back at him, and again Sean hears the slight reverence in his voice. Tentatively Sean lets his hand rest on the small of Mark’s back and he sees Mark’s mouth quirk into a smile.

“You two deserve each other, I can already tell,” Tyler says with a laugh. “What witchcraft are you capable of that Mark is so smitten, Sean?”

Ice slimes through every vein in Sean’s body, and he looks up with alarm before realizing that Tyler only meant the words as a playful accusation, not an actual observation. “Oh,” he says jerkily, nervously, and feels Mark’s hand tighten at his hip. “I didn’t really do anythin’. It… it was him who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Now that just makes me sound bad,” Mark complains.

“No more than usual, I’m sure,” Ethan chuckles. “What do you do, Sean?”

Again he feels his body freeze and again Sean is lost for words before he falters, “I don’t do anythin’, at the moment. I’m… between jobs. Lookin’ for a new start.”

“I meant to ask the other day,” Mark says, his voice curious, “how you managed to afford the house after all? I thought you said you couldn’t.”

His face warms. “I got some help,” Sean blurts quickly, “from family. Got a loan from my parents.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Mark says softly, cupping a hand at Sean’s flushed face. “Are my idiot friends making you nervous?”

“You’re makin’ me nervous, too,” Sean mutters, but it’s crowded by Ethan’s “Oh, that’s rich coming from you.” 

“You make _me_ pretty nervous,” Mark admits quietly, meeting his eyes. He bends and gently kisses him, and despite his childhood friends being right there Sean melts under the attention, leaning up into Mark until he’s got both arms around his neck.

“You really do deserve each other,” Ethan laughs, and the couple breaks apart sheepishly.

“Go away,” Mark says bluntly to the two men. They smirk in reply, and Mark sighs. “Worth a shot.”

They sit talking for what ends up being hours, joined briefly at one point by John and Kim, both of whom bring plates of food for the four of them to pick at. Mark’s parents are amiable, clearly happy that Mark brought someone with him to the party and they’re very welcoming to him, which makes it all the more difficult to bear the mounting guilt.

He’s lying, just by being here. Just by trying to be something he’s not Sean is telling everyone a fallacy about who he is. What he is. He watches Mark talk about himself as a boy, young and carefree and wild as all hell, but just as golden-hearted as he is now. He listens to the sound of his voice, absorbs the way he laughs and how he moves as he emotes with his hands. 

Sean has to tell him, as soon as possible. Otherwise he won’t survive his own shame at hiding what he is from the person that he wants to give it all up for.

*

Sean doesn’t tell him that night, even when he and Mark leave the barbecue early to make out for forty-five minutes on Sean’s porch.

He doesn’t mention it the next day when they go out for lunch, getting greasy, messy sandwiches from a food truck downtown. He doesn’t say anything about it when Mark gives him bedroom eyes over their Philly cheesesteaks, beef juice dripping down his chin. He doesn’t bring it up when Mark takes him out to a movie on Saturday night and, in the dark of the theatre, kisses him through over half of it.

It’s Tuesday now, a week since he moved into his house, and he’s unpacking a box of DVDs in the living room when Mark comes in the front door without so much as a knock. Sean looks up in surprise, jolting when he sees his brewing equipment in plain view on the coffee table, waiting for him to wrap it all up and put it away delicately in the back of his closet. Mark breezes right by the table, heads directly for him and sweeps him up in a big hug, startling a laugh out of Sean as his feet lift off the floor.

“Mmm, God, I missed you,” Mark hums delightedly into Sean’s neck, tickling his skin with his beard and making him squirm and giggle. “Fourteen hours is too long to be without my favourite neighbour.”

“Oh, we’re countin’ the hours now?” Sean teases, then giggles again when Mark blatantly rubs his bristly chin all over his neck. “And what about Mrs. Tennyson? She’d be heartbroken to hear that comin’ from you.”

“The eight-seven-year-old busybody with geriatric arthritis that lives across the street?” Mark murmurs, kissing his way down Sean’s neck, tugging his shirt aside to get at his shoulder. “How could I forget? I’m leaving you for her this instant.”

His words are negated when he drops Sean onto his back on the couch and immediately follows him down, pinning him to the cushions and capturing his mouth. 

“Yes, I can really detect all of that indifference,” Sean laughs against his lips. Out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of his cauldron, the towering pile of spellbooks next to it and all of his ingredients—boxes, bottles, vials, and tins all labelled clearly in his handwriting with names like “essence of fauna”, “granulated troll salt” and “mountain ash (pure)”. No mortal would know what to do with that kind of presentation of abnormality, and Sean’s already adding another notch to his cheat list to cast the spell necessary to move it all out of sight when Mark lifts his head.

“What’s so interesting that you won’t kiss me properly?” Mark demands friskily, and follows Sean’s line of sight to the amalgamation of wizardry goods on the table. He frowns. “What’s all this stuff?”

“It’s… kind of hard to explain,” Sean says, acutely aware of how Mark’s focus is now completely on the coffee table’s cargo. Mark levers himself upright and gets to his feet, and he’s grabbing up a flask of translucent eggshell-coloured liquid before Sean can advise against it.

“Solution of Transmogrification,” Mark reads aloud, eyes on the label, and then lifts his gaze to meet Sean’s. “What is this, some kind of Hallowe’en thing?” He moves a few steps and looks at other things on the table as Sean sits up nervously, tilting his head to read the spines of the books stacked there. “ _Advanced Encyclopedia of Alchemical Materials. Herdell’s Guide to Perfect Brewing._ ” He looks up again and something’s off in his face. Usually Mark’s so expressive, a tome easily read, but now it’s been slammed shut. He sets the corked flask down and gives Sean a look dampened with suspicion. “Are you—Do you believe in this witchy stuff? What is all this, Sean?”

“It’s what I come from,” Sean tells him, quiet enough to rival a mouse. “It’s what my life was before I came here.”

“So you’re telling me you actually believe in this junk,” Mark says, and he sounds so skeptical, so judgmental that Sean flinches as if he’d raised his fist.

Sean swallows in an effort to wet his parched throat and stands, rubbing a thumb along the side of his forefinger, too edgy to sit still. “Yes,” he whispers. “I’m a warlock.”

Recognition blooms over Mark’s features and Sean knows he’s remembering their second time together, right here in this room, when Mark took note of his tarot cards and Sean’s reply to it. _You caught me, I’m secretly a warlock_. He watches Mark mouth the word “warlock”, and Sean can almost see the replaying of the scenario in Mark’s face. All of their banter over the simple thing, what Mark thought was just a joke, just a little quirk of his, passes through the painter’s expression.

“Spellcasting, cauldrons, and fortune-telling,” Mark says, and stares down at the items again. Sean gnaws on his bottom lip and stays silent, his stomach roiling, feeling the slowly travelling wave of sparks over his skin fuelled by his nerves and anxiety, and he forces the energy to a standstill until it dissipates. Even his magic is freaking out. 

There’s a tense, anguished silence and then Mark turns on the spot and demands, “What the fuck, Sean? When—when the hell were you going to—” He scoffs, runs a hand through his hair in frustration and helplessness. He paces a few steps then stops again, restlessly moving. “Are you crazy? Are you actually crazy, like clinically fucking insane?” 

Sean presses his lips together and looks down at his socked feet. “No,” he gets out. “I’m not crazy. My… whole family is—”

“Magical?” Mark snaps, and Sean just nods, unable to speak. Unable to fathom how perfectly he fucked this all up. “God, you’re serious.” He shakes his head in disbelief, huffing out a tense breath. 

“I can prove it,” Sean whispers, but he doesn’t look up past Mark’s stubbled chin. He remembers its aggression on his neck not five minutes ago like a dream. Like it never actually happened.

“I don’t need to see you make a fool out of yourself,” Mark says tiredly, and goes to the front door. Sean doesn’t follow, doesn’t stop him, and after a lingering moment where Sean can’t bring himself to look up and watch his failure unfold, Mark is gone.

Slowly Sean lowers back down onto the couch, and he knows that the shock is already running through him but he doesn’t feel anything at all. His gaze lands on a small tin labelled “drakewort spores” and it stays there. He reads his own handwriting over and over, until the words lose all meaning, until he’s memorized the flippant tail of his E’s, the sharp corners of his K’s.

_I can’t stay_ , he finally lets himself think, when it’s been several minutes that feel like months. “I can’t stay,” he says aloud, and then it’s a little truer than before. Scrapping his cheat tally entirely, Sean gets to his feet laboriously and calls upon his magic. The sooner he gets out of here, the better.

*

Everything is already repacked and sent away back home when Sean gets a knock on his door the next morning. No one knows he’s leaving except his family, who were very understanding of his need to come home immediately after he explained what had happened.

“I’m so sorry, Sean,” Meg said miserably when she visited the day before, and hugged him until his eyes dewed with moisture. “I’m so sorry. I would take this pain for you if I could, little brother.”

But she can’t, and Sean wouldn’t let her even if she could. He deserves it. He did this to himself.

Sean stares at the door for a long time and contemplates answering it, then Candice the realtor’s cheery voice calls, “Hello, Sean? Are you home, sugar?” and she knocks again. 

He doesn’t go and answer it, though, and even waves a hand at the door to coerce Candice to give up and leave. She had mentioned when he got the house that she might come check in and see how he’s liking the place, but he’s not equipped to deal with anyone beyond immortals, and certainly no one that he’s met in the last ten days.

It took him until last night but he realized, too late, that he loves Mark. He does, with everything in him. Even after his reaction to what he is Sean still loves him. He wishes he didn’t because it would make leaving so much easier, but he knows by now that that’s not how things work.

Sean looks around at the empty house, wandering from room to room. It’s void of all his belongings except his tarot deck, which he plucks off the kitchen counter and slides into his pocket. He barely had time to get used to the little house before he had to give it up. 

With a final, steadying breath he goes to the front door and slips his shoes on. He gives the house one last look before he turns and opens the door.

And walks right into Mark.

“Oohf!” Sean huffs out in surprise, and jerks at the smell of familiar cologne hitting his nose. Mark makes a similar noise of gruff surprise and his arms lift to steady Sean but he flinches back, hurriedly stepping backwards through the doorway and into the house again.

“Sorry,” Mark says quickly, hands up and palms out in pacification. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—” He freezes mid-word, looking past Sean and into the house, blatantly void of personal effects. “Where… where’s all your stuff?”

“Home,” Sean says stiffly, wrapping his arms around his chest to keep the sudden chill there at bay. “Which is exactly where I’m goin’.”

Mark’s whole face falls with despair, as if he was just given the worst news of his life. “What? Wh—why?”

“I don’t belong here,” Sean murmurs, and drops his eyes to the ground. “I don’t belong with normal people.”

“No, that’s not true,” Mark argues heatedly. “You—”

“What are you doin’ here?” Sean interrupts, anxiety climbing ever higher the longer Mark looks at him. He shifts his weight between his feet, glancing up and then immediately back down again when Mark’s face is too open for him to handle.

“I came to tell you I’m sorry,” Mark says, and reaches out a little, fingertips searching. “But I don’t even… I don’t have the right words to say how sorry I am, and they won’t be enough to make up for the horrible things I said to you.”

“You meant them,” Sean replies evenly, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “There was no lie in your voice.”

“No, God, just—please listen,” Mark begs, and he comes forward and grabs Sean’s hands, holding them tight even when Sean tries to tug away. “Please, I’m so sorry—”

“Do you believe me?” Sean asks suddenly, harshly. “Do you believe anythin’ I said to you?” At Mark’s blank, mortified look, Sean has his answer. Bitterness fills his chest and he yanks his hands free and backs up, putting the door between himself and Mark with a sharp slam.

“Sean!” Mark yells, and starts knocking loudly. Sean leans his back against the door and tries to steady his shaking, pressing both hands to his face to hold in everything that wants to come pouring out. “Sean, please, open the door. Sean!”

“If you had just waited another minute I would be gone already,” Sean tells him morosely. “And we would both be better for it.”

“I’m better with you,” is Mark’s soft reply, barely audible through the door.

“Are you better with a warlock?” Sean retorts, and mashes his mouth shut when his lips start to tremble. “Because that’s what I am, whether you fuckin’ believe it or not. And I’m not goin’ to—to stay here when you can’t even believe somethin’ that I tell you. Why would I lie to you?” he shouts, turning to face the door. He slams his fist against it. “What would I lie to you for?”

“I just—it’s impossible,” Mark says after a moment, sounding uncertain, uneasy. “Magic doesn’t… exist.”

“Then neither do I,” Sean tells him bleakly, and snicks the lock on the door. “Goodbye, Mark.”

“What—” Mark begins, but Sean casts his apparition spell before he can hear the rest.

When he pops into his parents’ living room, tears are already falling from his face. His sister Hannah enters the room first, takes one look at him and comes forward to wrap him in a hug. “Oh, Sean,” she sighs, and pets his hair while he cries.

*

“I have a surprise for you.”

Sean doesn’t look up from his notes, furiously scribbling across the page, reading glasses low on his nose as he’s bent over the desk. “Later. I’m busy.”

“You’ll like this one,” his mother coaxes. “Your sisters found something that you lost.”

“I haven’t lost anythin’,” Sean murmurs distractedly. He reaches without looking and grabs a bottle, uncorking it and adding a couple drops to his toiling cauldron beside him, bubbling with a viscous, nearly black fluid. The solution hisses as the drops hit it, and all at once the colour changes to a bright pink. He scribbles more down in the notebook and stirs the cauldron, a large iron spoon in his opposite hand.

“Didn’t you, though?” Helena asks gently, and lays a hand on his arm.

Sean stills, looking up at his mother and sighing as he plucks his glasses off his nose. Setting them down he rubs wearily at his face. He’s been at it for hours and he’s feeling the strain, but magic, alchemy… they’re all he has left now. His very last love. “There’s nothin’ we can do, Ma. He couldn’t… He wouldn’t believe me. It’s over.”

“Says who?” comes a distinctly familiar voice, and Sean goes rigid in his seat when Mark comes through the doorway to his workshop/bedroom, shadowed by his smiling sisters. “I never agreed to that,” Mark continues to his shocked face. “I’m adamantly against it, actually. Really puts a kink in my whole plan of being with you forever.”

He’s gorgeous, dressed in holed, tattered jeans that are smeared with paint here and there and a loose, long-sleeve blue V-neck shirt. He’s got a stupid, hopeful little smile on his face, and his hands are stuffed almost violently into his pockets where they’re clenched into fists. Sean watches the muscles twitch in his forearms as he shifts his weight, tendons flexing under the caramel skin.

“When did that plan come about?” Sean wonders, slowly standing from his chair.

“The day I met you,” Mark says, shrugging. He drops the casual facade, fixing Sean with a deeply haunted look. “I miss my neighbour. Everything’s dull without you around, and I can’t even look at your old house without wanting to punch myself in the face for how I treated you.”

Sean looks away, nervously fidgeting his fingers. The rolling boil of his cauldron fills the silence, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. Mark being here clearly means his family intervened, that more than likely they apparated Mark here and therefore proved the existence of magic. But did he have to have it proven to him to believe in it? Did he only come and find him once Sean’s lunacy had been discredited by someone else’s magic?

“It’s… a lot to adjust to,” Mark adds, when Sean’s reply isn’t forthcoming. “The whole magic thing. And you trusted me and told me the truth about it, and I spit in your face because I wouldn’t believe otherwise. I’m sorry, Sean.”

“This life isn’t for everyone,” Sean says, and sighs. He glances up from his nervous fingers to see that he and Mark are alone, his family evidently giving them some privacy. “It’s okay if it’s too much.”

“It’s not,” Mark says at once, and closes the distance between them in three strides. “God, it’s not, okay? You are worth anything. Everything. My dumb ass just took a long time to figure that out.” Cautiously his hands lift to smooth over Sean’s cheeks, thumbs brushing, fingertips pressing. “Please tell me I didn’t totally ruin this.”

Sean laughs softly, latching his hands onto Mark’s shirt like vices, prominently immoveable. He leans into the caress, rubbing his face into Mark’s palm, and breathes in deeply. “You didn’t ruin it,” Sean whispers, and feels his smile when Mark’s mouth touches to his.

“Thank God,” Mark breathes when he pulls away, resting his forehead against Sean’s and smiling roguishly. “I thought your sister was going to turn me into a crow.”

“That was _one time_!” Megan screeches from somewhere inside the house, and it’s minutes before either one of them stops laughing.

*

Sean gives him a skeptical look, mouth wryly twisted in a half-smile. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Mark says, bouncing on the balls of his feet like he’s about to jump in the boxing ring.

“You know you’re bein’ ridiculous,” Sean informs him.

“Be quiet and just do it,” Mark snarks back, then sticks out his tongue for added effect. 

With a roll of his eyes Sean throws up a hand like he’s tossing a handful of dust into the air. From his fingers flies an array of sparks of every colour, fizzling madly in an arc over their heads before petering out into nothing. He quirks an eyebrow at Mark as the last sparks die. “There. Are you satisfied?”

“Not even remotely,” Mark replies, and crosses the short distance between them to sweep Sean up into a crushing hug. “You didn’t even spark me, you just sparked the air.”

“Sparks are tricky,” Sean murmurs, then pauses his train of thought when Mark bends and kisses him breathless. “I know they feel cool, but they have minds of their own sometimes. Mortals can get hurt even by the little stuff.”

“Like you didn’t put at least five wards on me this morning,” Mark accuses, but his eyes are humoured.

“Sometimes wards fail,” Sean argues belligerently, and Mark scoops him up and heads for their bedroom. “Okay, now what are you doin’?”

“I’m putting an end to this madness,” Mark says, and kicks the door shut behind them. He drops Sean onto the mattress and climbs over top of him, dark hair falling down like a curtain. 

“Really, because I think you’re just tryin’ to instigate your own madness,” Sean muses, then sighs unevenly when Mark lowers to nibble at his throat. “Well, I suppose “madness” is a strong word, _acushla_.”

Mark’s expression softens at the endearment and Sean feels his heart taking the brunt of the hit from that look. “Say something, in Gaelic.”

“ _Is breá liom tú an méid sin_ ,” Sean tells him tenderly, lifting up to kiss him. By now Mark knows those words, has heard them enough to understand them. He pulls back and smiles such a golden smile that for a breathless moment Sean is lost in a face so beautiful it makes him ache, then Mark’s body pushes him down a second before his mouth and for a long time, there aren’t any words between them at all.


End file.
